Drink the Wild Air
by Teobi
Summary: Introspective Gordon one-shot for my dear friend (who knows who she is). TAG2015. No spoilers, no episode tie-ins. Just Gordon and a pink towel.


Just gonna put this here for a friend who needs some hugs n stuff right now (along with her whole family) and who is a Gordon fan. I don't have a magic wand but I do have some pretty nimble fingers and so I put them to work on some kind of little fiction story in lieu of a proper big hug.

Oh yeah, and **third person present** so if you're not a fan then you might want to look away now.

 **TAG2015** \- itv, WETA, Pukeka, Andersons, etc.

* * *

 _Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air. ~_ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Gordon powers through the water. His tanned and glistening arms describe perfect arcs through the air while each blade-like hand cuts cleanly through the surface and strong, scissoring legs propel him forward. Gordon is like a leopard seal, a mako shark, a sleek torpedo. He is fast and efficient, does not waste a single breath of air or atom of energy. Gordon may be the joker of the family on dry land, but in water he is deadly serious. If you were to look up at him from below you would see his lips compressed, his brow tight with concentration, a frothy cloud of bubbles streaming in his wake. You would see speed and determination and the tautening of muscles beneath the skin. You would not see an ounce of surplus fat. You would see the results of years of dedicated training and discipline, and it would surprise you to think that this was Gordon. Gordon the prankster, Gordon the jester, Gordon the charmer. You would see the Gordon that few people outside the family see-

Gordon the survivor.

 _Everyone_ has their inner introvert, and Gordon Cooper Tracy is no exception. He brings his inner introvert to the swimming pool where the two of them can be alone. His brothers know that when Gordon is swimming, _really_ swimming, he mustn't be disturbed unless it's an emergency. He is not swimming for fun, for recreational purposes. He is swimming to save his life.

Gordon doesn't remember _the accident_. He remembers _before_ the accident, and _after_ the accident. But the event itself is a dark hole in his memory, a void, a cluster of anti-matter. If he didn't have the scars and the stories, if he hadn't remembered waking up in hospital to find a blurry bank of frightened faces staring down at him, he would never have known it had happened. Oh, sure- there were times when he wished he'd remained blissfully ignorant. He didn't want to picture himself curled up in the mangled hydrofoil with shrapnel so deeply embedded in his body that even a hardened paramedic had vomited at the sight of all the blood. It hurt him to imagine the desperation of his own family as they waited for news. From what Gordon had been told, his father had worn several additional pathways through the hospital corridors as he fretted and paced. Scott had become an insomniac, unable to sleep a wink for months. Virgil went through his 'Dark Phase', painting grim, angry depictions of violence and death. John withdrew into himself, hiding in the shadows of his own psyche, and Alan, terrified that he'd lose his closest brother, wouldn't stop crying day and night. All of them had stared death in the face through Gordon's accident. They had already lost their mother, and now they were about to lose the brightest light their family had ever known.

But in spite of the odds, Gordon had pulled through. The one thing he does remember is a bizarre dream he had about being dragged underwater by an unknown force, fighting against it with all his might so that he could reach the surface for that one magic drink of air. He wonders now if it _was_ a dream, and not something that had actually _happened._ He tries not to dwell on it. Gordon Cooper Tracy is proud to call himself a realist- there is no room in his makeup for supernatural flights of fancy. And yet- the memory of that one dream lingers.

Gordon powers through the water. Every time he feels a deep twinge in his ribs or between his shoulder blades, an indefinable stab of pain in his chest, he puts it down to the effects of _the accident_ , even if it's nothing more serious than trapped wind or a temporarily compressed nerve- nothing to do with his fateful past. _The accident_ became a part of him on the day it happened, and will be a part of him until the day he dies. He can swim and swim and swim but he will never escape that fact, although he tries.

He wishes he could have reassured his family at a time when they needed it, when they were fussing and fretting, losing sleep, blaming each other, withdrawing into secret worlds, staring into darkness through the night as the monitors pulsed and winked, blipping Gordon's life across disinterested screens. He wishes they could have known that he wasn't actually _in pain_ \- that the real pain began afterwards, when he found out how worried they'd been, how wracked with guilt and grief, how angry and frustrated. He had never actually felt the shards of reinforced titanium slicing through his skin and bones. He couldn't recall the hydrofoil snapping in two and cartwheeling across the lake, throwing debris all over the place like confetti at a wedding. He had never heard the frightened shouting of his team mates- "Oh shit, oh shit, _oh shiiiit_...!" It had all happened far too quickly. One minute the blue sky, next minute the anguished waterfall of his father's tears.

All he remembers are the first words he said to his father when he woke up.

 _"I'm sorry."_

Gordon powers through the water. Two more laps and his therapeutic swim is over- he plunges down to the bottom of the pool and then up again like a dolphin, his entire body undulating, bubbles streaming from his nose. He breaks the surface with an ecstatic shout and shakes the water from his thick mop of strawberry blond hair.

He climbs out of the pool and strides over to the sun loungers, realizing with a laugh that someone has been down to the pool and substituted his no-nonsense black towel for a fluffy pink one. They never stop doing it- replacing his bottle of water with one of pink lemonade (complete with neon yellow twisty straw), or his sunglasses with a pair of pink plastic Barbie shades. What makes it even funnier to Gordon is that _they buy this stuff with their own money_ just so they can prank him when he's not looking. The thought of Scott and Virgil actively browsing for pink Barbie accessories whilst snickering to themselves as they plan another woeful prank not only tickles his funny bone, but makes his heart do funny things- making him feel more alive than he ever did before _the accident._

Swiping the pink towel side to side across his shoulder blades, Gordon squints up at the house- but of course, there's no sign of the culprits. It doesn't matter- he'll get them back eventually, and besides, this towel is actually pretty cool.

Gordon slings the towel around his neck and reaches for the wrist comm which is lying in the shade of an umbrella on a nearby table. He notices with a surprise that there's a message waiting for him. He slips the comm onto his arm and opens the message.

It's from Penny.

She's sent him a selfie.

Gordon laughs at her Ladyship's ridiculously exaggerated duckface pose. He sends one back of him flexing his biceps with the pink towel draped across his shoulders. She sends a text back- _You look adorable in pink_. He grins widely. _Wait 'til I tell them their pink towel prank made Penny like me even more!_

They send each other a quick flurry of silly, platonic-but-flirty texts, and then Gordon tells her he has to go, even though he really doesn't. He jogs barefoot past the pool house and bounds up the steps that lead to the main villa. He flicks the end of the pink towel at Kayo as he passes her on his way to the kitchen. He misses his father, misses him terribly- has no idea where he is, or even whether he's still alive. But one thing he does know, and knows without a shadow of a doubt in his mind, is that Jeff would want more than anything to see Gordon laughing. To see _all_ of his boys laughing. After all that they've been through- the pain of love, the pain of loss, _the accident,_ the pain of not knowing, the pain of discovery, the helpless pain of seeing others in pain and the sheer, unforgiving pain of simple day to day living, Jeff would not want his boys to be unhappy.

But there's no chance of being unhappy right now. Because thanks to Penny and Kayo, Brains and MAX, Grandma and his overprotective, dorky, ridiculously awesome brothers, Gordon Cooper Tracy lives to see another day- pink fluffy towel and all.


End file.
